Prognostic value of pretreatment lymphocyte percentage in oral cancer: A prospective cohort study

Na Wang; Yulan Lin; Liling Shen; Haoyuan Song; Weihai Huang; Jingyao Huang; Fa Chen; Fengqiong Liu; Jing Wang; Yu Qiu; Bin Shi; Lisong Lin; Baochang He

doi:10.1111/odi.14658

Prognostic value of pretreatment lymphocyte percentage in oral cancer: A prospective cohort study

Oral Dis. 2023 Jun 25. doi: 10.1111/odi.14658. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Na Wang^{1

2}, Yulan Lin^{1

2}, Liling Shen^{1

2}, Haoyuan Song^{1

2}, Weihai Huang^{1

2}, Jingyao Huang^{1

2}, Fa Chen^{1

2}, Fengqiong Liu^{1

2}, Jing Wang³, Yu Qiu⁴, Bin Shi⁴, Lisong Lin⁴, Baochang He^{1

2

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Environment Factors and Cancer, School of Public Health, Fujian Medical University, Fujian, China.
² Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education for Gastrointestinal Cancer, Fujian Medical University, Fujian, China.
³ Laboratory Center, The Major Subject of Environment and Health of Fujian Key Universities, School of Public Health, Fujian Medical University, Fujian, China.
⁴ Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, China.

PMID: 37357359
DOI: 10.1111/odi.14658

Abstract

Objective: To assess the prognostic role of pretreatment lymphocyte percentage (LY%) for patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC).

Methods: A large-scale prospective cohort study between July 2002 and March 2021 was conducted. Propensity score-matched (PSM) analysis and inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) analysis were performed to adjust for potential confounders. Using random survival forest (RSF), the relative importance of pretreatment LY% in prognosis prediction was also assessed.

Results: A total of 743 patients were enrolled and followed up (median: 2.75 years, interquartile range: 1.25-4.42 years). A high pretreatment LY% was significantly associated with better disease-specific survival of patients with OSCC (Hazard ratio [HR] = 0.60, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.42, 0.84). The same tendency was observed in PSM (HR = 0.57, 95% CI: 0.38, 0.85) and IPTW analysis (HR = 0.57, 95% CI: 0.40, 0.82). RSF showed that LY% ranked the fifth among importance ranking of all prognostic factors.

Conclusion: Pretreatment LY% showed a moderate predictive ability, suggesting it might be a valuable tool to predict prognosis for patients with OSCC.

Keywords: cohort; oral squamous cell carcinoma; pretreatment lymphocyte percentage; prognosis.

Grants and funding

This study was supported by Fujian Natural Science Foundation Program No, Grant/Award Numbers: 2022J01235 and 2022J01239; Joint Funds for the Innovation of Science and Technology of Fujian Province, Grant/Award Number: 2021Y9015